I can do that!!

Just found this book online and had to show you! There's a lot of times I wish I would have paid attention when my great-grandma was trying to teach me something domestic (baking comes to mind...), but instead I was outside building things with my great-grandpa. Don't get me wrong- the fact that I own more tools than my husband tells you I paid attention to grandpa but, there are times when grandma's knowledge would come in handy as well! This book will definitely be on my wish list!!

Plus, you can enter to win it!

(http://erincooks.com/an-erin-cooks-contest-how-to-sew-a-button-and-other-nifty-things-your-grandmother-knew/)

• baseboards...check!

Downstairs baseboards are measured, cut, and attached to the wall! Let me say that again- they are done!! Well, technically. They are on the wall and the edges and nail holes are caulked. Now, we have to go back and paint, but they're up and look fantastic. We're debating about now adding the quarter-round.

It took us all morning Saturday to measure and cut 90% of the downstairs baseboards. We had some other things to do Saturday afternoon so we called it a day around 2:30 pm. Sunday we slept in a bit and got back to work. After about an hour everything was cut, it started to rain a bit, so we moved inside to nail the boards onto the walls. Everything just looks so much better with baseboards!

David found a Craigslist ad about baseboards a week ago, checked out the store, and we decided to use them. $.50/foot for 4 1/4" baseboards- super steal! They come in 16' pieces - that was a fun trip home! One end stuck out the back of the 4-Runner (window down) and the other stuck out the front passenger window resting on a box and the side mirror. My arms were tired from holding them together!

I was in charge of measuring while David did the actual cutting on the miter saw. We have to go back for one more piece of baseboard to finish off the closet- since we added the 45-degree finisher piece to the ends of some of the baseboards we were a little bit short. The best piece was along our long wall- 29.5'. We cut two 45-degree angles off the ends of one piece and put the board in the house. Then we had to measure and cut down a second board to the right size. After we set those two pieces inside it already looked better!

We need to finish the upstairs hallway, office, and bathrooms and then we'll be totally done with baseboards. Hooray!

Now when we walk in the door the house just feels more complete and finished. I love it! Slowly but surely- we're getting there!

It's Christmas!

This will be our second married Christmas. I can't believe it!

Last year we looked for Christmas stockings, but didn't find anything we liked. Plus, we didn't have anywhere to hang them when we lived in the apartment. Our mission a few weekends ago was to see if there were any stockings we loved. Mission accomplished! Our first stockings!

We don't have a fireplace mantle so we decided to hang them on our stair railing. Okay, I got the idea from a magazine picture I saw, but it's a fantastic idea! The stockings were missing something- our names. Charlotte, a parent at my school has her own embroidery business called Whimsy & Wishes. I contacted Charlotte to get our names embroidered on the stockings. She does an amazing job! She also did the monogram on my lunchbag that I got for my bridal shower last year! She's quick and can embroider pretty much anything! Aren't they so cute?!

Hi ho, Hi ho!

Two weekends ago we got out our Christmas decorations out and put up our Christmas tree we bought the year before for $20! We might put lights up outside the birdhouse; we'll see.

The day started with David trimming the bushes in the front. The HOA takes care of trimming but doesn't do shaping. So, the bushes have grown out of control. All the landscaper guys do is trim them down every other month; we wanted them majorly cut back. Last weekend we borrowed some hedge trimmers from my mom, and then ended up also getting some loppers (that's what Lowe's called them) and a small rake today. I started cleaning up around the birdhouse and doing some laundry. I couldn't resist- I went outside and helped David start devouring the bushes with the tools. There was so much dead undergrowth that the bushes now look like 4 small starting plants. That's okay- they'll grow back and hopefully look better too!

We also finally caulked the downstairs sinks- kitchen and bathroom. It didn't take us long to do; we've just been putting it off for some reason. Check that off our list. Yes!

Over the Thanksgiving holiday I bought some pots and pans, and corningware. That was the easy part. The hard part is finding a place to put all these items. I bought the kitchenware because we had a pan here, a pot there. We decided that instead of using our last cabinet for the trash roll-out as we originally intended, we'd put in a dual basket pull-out. We bought it today and installed it in no time.

Now all our pots & pans fit on those two shelves. Hooray! I actually got David to help me organize the rest of the items in the kitchen before he settled in for some football.

Our next two big items are to tackle the baseboards- buy them, install them- and finish the downstairs bathroom open pocket door. I'm hoping we can take care of buying the baseboards this week.